India granted ‘authorizing nation’ status under common criteria for IT product testing

At the International Common Criteria Conference in Orlando, U.S.A., India has been granted the status of ‘authorizing nation’ for product testing becoming the 17th country to have earned such a status.

For the uninitiated the common criteria (CC) is one of the most widely recognized security evaluations criteria for secure IT products. It provides and assurance that the overall implementation and evaluation of any ICT product has been carried out through the use of standard-based, rigorous methods which are repeatable. The CC framework is managed and operated by CCRA and it has 26 member nations including the likes of Australia, Germany, Japan, UK, and US among others.

CCRA’s nod will not only provide global recognition to the product testing labs in India, but it will also remove the bottleneck in product testing, which has been present up until now for the lack authorizing nation status. Further multinationals have already established their R&D centers in India which can now be extended to incorporate testing facilities and because of the status they will automatically be recognized by other countries.

Through the recognition, India’s STQC is now authorized to certify independent labs as recommended under the Joint Working Group (JWG) of NSA. STQC, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) and members of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) have been working closely on this all along.

Nasscom, a local industry group, said in a press release, “With India’s reputation of providing cost-effective and quality services to the globe, this is likely to make it a hub for testing and certification for the global requirements.”

Nasscom has urged private players to take a lead and tap the opportunity to set up testing labs including the ones which specifically target cyber security area and work closely with the government-controlled certification body to give India a boost in the assurance regime.

Ravi is the founder of Parity Media and currently acting as an editor of ParityNews.com. He is a technology enthusiast with keen interest in information security. Ravi has over 6 years of experience and is keen on raising general awareness about technology in society.